have thought that being both of a trade you would have hated each
other."

"Not so, Prince. On the contrary we add up each other's account; I mean,
check and interpret each other's visions, with which we are both of us
much troubled just now. Is that young man a scribe from Memphis?"

"Yes, and my friend. His grandsire was Pentaur the poet."

"Indeed. I knew Pentaur well. Often has he read me to sleep with his
long poems, rank stuff that grew like coarse grass upon a deep but
half-drained soil. Are you sure, young man, that Pentaur was your
grandfather? You are not like him. Quite a different kind of herbage,
and you know that it is a matter upon which we must take a woman's
word."

Seti burst out laughing and I looked at the old priest angrily, though
now that I came to think of it my father always said that his mother was
one of the biggest liars in Egypt.

"Well, let it be," went on Bakenkhonsu, "till we find out the truth
before Thoth. Ki was speaking of you, young man. I did not pay much
attention to him, but it was something about a sudden vow of friendship
between you and the Prince here. There was a cup in the story too, an
alabaster cup that seemed familiar to me. Ki said it was broken."

Seti started and I began angrily:

"What do you know of that cup? Where were you hid, O Priest?"

"Oh, in your souls, I suppose," he answered dreamily, "or rather Ki was.
But I know nothing, and am not curious. If you had broken the cup with
a woman now, it would have been more interesting, even to an old man.
Be so good as to answer the Prince's question as to whether he or his
cousin Amenmeses will triumph at the last, for on that matter both Ki
and I are curious."

"Am I a seer," I began again still more angrily, "that I should read the
future?"

"I think so, a little, but that is what I want to find out."

He hobbled towards me, laid one of his claw-like hands upon my arm, and
said in a new voice of command:

"Look now upon that throne and tell me what you see there."

I obeyed him because I must, staring up the hall at the empty throne. At
first I saw nothing. Then figures seemed to flit around it. From among
these figures emerged the shape of the Count Amenmeses. He sat upon the
throne, looking about him proudly, and I noted that he was no longer
clad as a prince but as Pharaoh himself. Presently hook-nosed men
appeared who dragged him from his seat. He fell, as I thought, into
water, for it seemed to sp